brussels — The European Union has decided to increase tariffs on Chinese-built electric vehicles to as much as 45.3% at the end of its highest profile investigation that has divided Europe and prompted retaliation from Beijing.

Just over a year after launching its anti-subsidy probe, the European Commission will set out extra tariffs ranging from 7.8% for Tesla to 35.3% for China’s SAIC, on top of the EU’s standard 10% car import duty.

The extra tariffs were formally approved and published in the EU’s Official Journal on Tuesday, meaning they will take effect on Wednesday.

The Commission, which oversees EU trade policy, has said tariffs are required to counter what it says are unfair subsidies including preferential financing and grants as well as land, batteries and raw materials at below market prices.

It says China’s spare production capacity of 3 million EVs per year is twice the size of the EU market. Given 100% tariffs in the United States and Canada, the most obvious outlet for those EVs is Europe.

Beijing has called the EU tariffs protectionist and damaging to EU-China relations and automotive supply chains and has launched its own probes this year into imports of EU brandy, dairy and pork products in apparent retaliation.

It has also challenged the EU’s provisional measures at the World Trade Organization.

European automakers are grappling with an influx of lower-cost EVs from Chinese rivals. The Commission estimates Chinese brands’ share of the EU market has risen to 8% from below 1% in 2019 and could reach 15% in 2025. It says prices are typically 20% below those of EU-made models.

The EU’s stance toward Beijing has hardened in the last five years. It views China as a potential partner in some areas, but also as a competitor and a systemic rival, but EU members are not united on EV tariffs.

Germany, the EU’s biggest economy and major car producer, opposed tariffs in a vote earlier this month in which 10 EU members backed them, five voted against and 12 abstained.

Germany’s economy ministry said on Tuesday Berlin supported ongoing EU negotiations with China and hoped for a diplomatic resolution to mitigate trade tensions while protecting EU industry.

“The Federal Government stands for open markets. Because Germany in particular, as a globally interconnected economy, is dependent on this,” the spokesperson added.

German carmakers have heavily criticized the EU measures, aware that possible higher Chinese import duties on large-engine gasoline vehicles would hit them hardest.

The measures come as thousands of German industrial workers, including at the carmakers, strike for higher wages, with Volkswagen possibly about to announce shutting plants on home soil for the first time in its 87-year history.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said the EU was headed for an “economic cold war” with China.

However, France’s PFA car association has welcomed duties, adding it backed free trade as long as it was fair.

The Commission has held eight rounds of technical negotiations with China to find an alternative to tariffs and said talks can continue after tariffs are imposed.

The two sides are looking at possible minimum price commitments for imported cars and agreed on Friday to hold a further round, although the Commission said there were “significant remaining gaps.”

It remains to be seen what impact tariffs will have on consumer prices. Some producers may be able to absorb them at least partially.

In the first nine months of 2024, China’s EV exports to the EU were down 7% from a year earlier, but they have surged by more than a third in August and September, ahead of the tariffs, data from the China Passenger Car Association, or CPCA, show.
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In Shanghai, police, not trick-or-treaters and partygoers, are taking to the streets this week as the city approaches Halloween. The strengthened police force accompanies official notices prohibiting citizens from “role-playing” on Halloween, signaling the government’s paranoia over the social instability the holiday’s festivities could bring.

Videos online show police cars lining the streets of Shanghai, with some officers approaching crowds and instructing them to disperse from fenced-off areas.

A leaked notice from the Huangpu subdistrict office identified any form of Halloween costumes, but especially role-playing costumes and makeup with gore, to be prohibited in public. Police have been instructed to persuade those in costume to leave or take off offensive garments and employ more coercive measures in the event of noncompliance.

The police garrisons, protocols and general air of malaise in Shanghai find their roots in the local government’s fear of mass protest, according to Shanghai resident Ma, who declined to provide her first name out of fear of reprisal for talking to VOA.

“The Communist Party knows that ‘a spark can start a prairie fire’ and that many young people are now unemployed and unable to find jobs,” Ma siad. “So they have deployed a large number of police forces on Changle Road and Julu Road, probably because they are worried that some of the freethinking young people will protest against the government in a strange way on Halloween.” Ma told VOA.

Costumed people taken by police

Some youth in Shanghai have appeared to ignore the warnings, gathering in Zhongshan park and the nearby streets to celebrate the holiday early. Online videos of the scene show some people in costume being taken away by the police, while others argue with law enforcement.

At another celebration Friday night, in the Jing An district, Reuters reported that an attendee in a skeleton costume was detained by the police and escorted to an administrative building where he was asked to remove his makeup.

Wang, a Shanghai resident who declined to provide his first name for his personal security, disagreed with the sudden tightening of restrictions on Halloween celebrations in his city.

“What can wearing a unique dress do?” Wang asked. “As a normal, civilized society, this should not be a matter of concern at all. It is normal to ‘let the arts blossom’ and allow everyone to release their inner yearning for freedom. In a normal, civilized society, the police maintain the safety of the people. In our case, it’s the opposite,” Wang said.

Originating in the West, Halloween has found popularity in China in recent years. This is especially the case in Shanghai, known as China’s most international city and for its relative open-mindedness.

In 2023, the city resumed the celebration of Halloween for the first time after the COVID-19 lockdowns, and some residents used this opportunity for self-expression to critique the Chinese government and political phenomena through costume. Some people dressed as Winnie the Pooh, a character that is often censored online in China given his likeness to Chinese President Xi Jinping, and others referenced past protests through covering their bodies in white paper.

Ma believes that tensions this week between Halloween celebrants and local authorities are unlikely to escalate.

“Young people are indeed rebellious, but because of the education we have received since childhood, most Chinese young people dare not, and are unlikely, to rebel,” Ma said.

“Will the authorities completely control and prohibit Halloween? I don’t think they will, but they will strictly control it. There will definitely be a lot of police in more important places. If any little thing happens, they will immediately send a police car to prevent the matter from escalating,” she said.

Unique opportunity for free expression

Chen Daoyin, an independent political analyst in China, told VOA that he believes that Halloween provides Chinese people with a unique opportunity for Western-style free expression.

“Most people, especially young people who dress up as characters on festivals like Halloween, have usually adopted Western culture, or at the very least know that people in Western systems have the freedom of expression,” Chen said.

“We have opinions about the current situation and the government, and can make our voices heard, but we also know that this is not allowed in the current political environment in China. Everyone knows what is going on. So they express their dissatisfaction with the authorities through dressing up as characters,” he said.

Li Rongwei, executive director of the Taiwan Inspirational Association, however, told VOA that the holiday’s Western origins make it more susceptible to suppression.

“For China, Halloween is a product of the West, a typical capitalist bourgeois thing,” Li said. “Since Halloween is a foreign thing and not a product of the so-called Chinese nation or China as the CCP believes, it is, of course, a class struggle and should be slandered,” Li said.

October 27 marked the first anniversary of the death of former Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, whose unexpected passing less than a year after he left the powerful premier position, sparked online conspiracy theories about the Chinese government. The Chinese government also might fear a social disruption akin to the 2022 White Paper Movement in protest of strict pandemic regulations that was referenced at Halloween celebrations in Shanghai last year.

“Social movements always have to have a reason, and it is conceivable to use Li Keqiang as the reason,” Lai said. “This is also what the CCP fears the most. A tandem movement always has a theme. According to the perception of the CCP’s top officials, it may be believed that this is a social movement planned by foreign forces.”

But Chen believes that it is an over-speculation and inaccurate to link this year’s crackdown on Halloween with Li Keqiang and the White Paper Movement and says that there will not be any kind of uprising in China without an acute inciting incident.

“It is impossible for the youth of today … to start a movement of any kind without the impact of a big event,” he said.

“So far this year, there has been no major event that can arouse empathy and emotional expression,” Chen said.

Katherine Michaelson and Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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Indonesia is in the process of building a new, $32 billion capital city on the island of Borneo. But as VOA’s Ahadian Utama reports, the rapid development is raising concerns among some local communities who are being displaced by the construction.
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Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia — Survivors and family members of campers killed in a 2022 landslide at an agritourism farm in Malaysia have filed a lawsuit contending the disaster was caused by negligence – not only excessive rainfall as an earlier government report concluded.

“We want this lawsuit to bring to the public’s attention the real reasons why this tragedy happened,” said Tan Ei Ein, whose 7-year-old son, Zech, was killed in the landslide.

The government “is trying to save itself from trouble by blaming it on nature,” Tan told VOA, describing the report as a “whitewash.”

“That way nobody needs to take any accountability,” Tan said.

In December 2022, the earth swept over tents at a campsite on Father’s Organic Farm in in the rural community of Batang Kali, in Selangor state, about 50 kilometers north of Kuala Lumpur.

The landslide left 31 people dead, including 13 children. Some of the 61 survivors had serious injuries.

Disputing the cause

Last year, the federal government issued a report on the tragedy that said the landslide was triggered by slope failure after unusually high rainfall over a period of weeks. The report said there was no strong evidence that human activity was a contributing factor.

The report did not address standing questions about why a farm and campsite were able to operate in what experts call a risky location and did not mention an environmental assessment approved by a federal agency a decade earlier that said the area where the farm and campsite were located should not be developed. 

While the lawsuit also said rainfall was a significant factor behind the landslide, it additionally accused the state and local governments of multiple failures and said the property owner and farm operator also made careless missteps. Those entities, along with a state agency, a government-linked company and another private company, are targets of the lawsuit. No federal agencies are being sued.

The landslide started downhill from a state government road on a section of a hill where there was a manmade embankment before striking the farm and campsite below. 

The lawsuit blames the Selangor state government’s public works department for shoddy construction when the embankment was built, which increased the likelihood of a landslide. 

The lawsuit also accuses the state public works department and Infrasel, a private road work company contracted by the state, of not conducting proper safety testing and necessary maintenance on the embankment. 

“The government’s public report says that there was no one to blame but, more or less, an act of God, the rainfall caused the tragedy,” Teckwyn Lim, a geographer and honorary associate professor at the University of Nottingham Malaysia, told VOA. 

Lim is part of a team of scientists, lawyers and a geotechnical engineer who investigated the tragedy for the plaintiffs. 

“What we are saying is that ‘no, it was actually the result of negligence from the authorities and also the landowners. If the people in charge, if the government had been doing its job, then those lives wouldn’t have been lost,’” Lim said.

The government report did not blame any agency or private company, saying slope and road maintenance were conducted on a regular schedule.

Development of the property

Father’s Organic Farm was on property owned by Malaysia Botanical Gardens Resort. Last year, VOA reported that Kong Yew Foong and his father Kong Hon Kong, who also goes by the name David Kong, were listed in Companies Commission of Malaysia records as directors at Malaysia Botanical Gardens Resort. Earlier this year, Forbes listed David Kong’s net worth at $825 million.

The lawsuit points to an environmental impact assessment (EIA) approved by the Department of Environment in 2013 that said the area where the farm and campsite were located was not to be developed. VOA was first to report on the existence of this EIA about one month after the landslide.

In January 2023 correspondence with VOA, Malaysia’s Ministry of Natural Resources, Environment and Climate Change wrote: “The area of which Father’s Organic Farm was built had been determined as a No-Go Area. Therefore, the development of Father’s Organic Farm was in violation of the approval conditions of the EIA report approved to Malaysia Botanical Gardens Resort.” 

But the assessment was not addressed in the government’s landslide report. 

“The fact that the government report makes no mention of the EIA suggests that they wanted to cover it up,” said Lim. “The 2013 EIA says the site should’ve been kept as forest land and the implication was that’s because the site was too sensitive to develop, meaning it’s unsafe to develop.”

The suit also accuses the campsite operator and the property owner of negligence for not following regulations because the farm and campsite were allegedly run without the appropriate business license, development permits and engineering approvals. The lawsuit says the local municipal council should have closed the campsite down for not following regulations.

The plaintiffs also blame owners for clearing land and removing trees below the embankment, which they said might have kept the landslide from reaching the campsite. 

The lawsuit does not specify a figure for compensation for the families of the victims who were killed. The defendants listed in the lawsuit are BL Agro, which the plaintiffs say is the new name of the business that owned and operated Father’s Organic Farm and the campsite; Malaysia Botanical Gardens Resort; Selangor state public works department; Infrasel, a private road work company contracted by the state of Selangor; the Hulu Selangor Municipal Council; the state government of Selangor and the Selangor State Agricultural Development Corporation. 

VOA left messages for Amirudin Shari, who serves as the equivalent of a chief minister for Selangor state, but has not received a response. Amirudin Shari is not a defendant. VOA has also not received responses to its inquiries from representatives of the other defendants.

“We want accountability,“ said Loh Teng Shui, the father of 7-year-old landslide victim Zech. “So far no one has been held accountable and we want the full truth to come out.”

 
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WASHINGTON/BEIJING/TAIPEI — Chinese President Xi Jinping asked U.S. President Joe Biden last year to change the language the United States uses when discussing its position on Taiwanese independence, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the private conversation.

During last November’s Biden-Xi meeting near San Francisco, Xi and his aides asked Biden and his team to tweak the language in U.S. official statements.

China wanted the U.S. to say “we oppose Taiwan independence,” rather than the current version, which is that the United States “does not support” independence for Taiwan, said the people, who requested anonymity to speak about private diplomatic exchanges they participated in or were briefed on.

Xi’s aides have repeatedly followed up and made the requests in the months since, according to two U.S. officials and another person familiar with the exchanges.

The U.S. has declined to make the change.

The White House responded to a request for comment with a statement that repeated the line that Washington does not support Taiwan independence. “The Biden-Harris administration has been consistent on our long-standing One China policy,” the statement read.

China’s foreign ministry said: “You should ask this question to the U.S. government. China’s position on the Taiwan issue is clear and consistent.”

Taiwan’s foreign ministry declined comment.

The defeated Republic of China government fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with Mao Zedong’s communists.

The Republic of China remains Taiwan’s formal name and the government says it has no plans to change that given they are already a sovereign, independent state and Beijing has no right to claim Taiwan as its own.

Sensitive issue

For several years, Chinese diplomats have pushed the United States to make changes to how it refers to Taiwan’s status, which remains the most sensitive area in U.S.-China relations. The unusually direct and renewed push at the leader level has not been reported previously.

The United States severed official relations with the government in Taipei in 1979 but is bound by law to provide democratically governed Taiwan with the means to defend itself. China claims Taiwan as its own territory and has never renounced the use of force to bring the island under its control.

It was not clear why Xi chose to raise the issue with Biden, but he has made opposition to Taiwan independence a focus of his time in office and China’s military has significantly ramped up its activities around the island in recent years.

The Biden administration regards the proposed language change as a non-starter.

Taiwan was briefed on the recent overtures at a high level by Washington, said one of the sources.

Leaders in Beijing “would love it if Joe Biden said very different things about Taiwan than he says, no doubt,” said one senior Biden administration official, adding that Biden would stick with the standard U.S. formulation for talking about Taiwan independence.

During his time in office, Biden has upset the Chinese government with comments that appeared to suggest the United States would defend the island if it were attacked, a deviation from a long-held U.S. position of “strategic ambiguity.”

Change would reverberate

A change by the U.S. to say that it opposes Taiwanese independence would reverberate through the trade-rich Asia Pacific and with U.S. partners, competitors and adversaries alike.

Officials from two governments in the region told Reuters they would interpret any such change in wording as a change in U.S. policy toward less support for Taipei’s defense and diplomatic aspirations at a time when Beijing has ramped up military pressure.

China has over the past five years staged almost daily military activities around Taiwan. Earlier this month, Beijing held a day of war games using what Taiwan said was a record 153 military aircraft as part of drills simulating blockading ports and assaulting maritime and ground targets.

Any switch in language could also be seen signaling a shift in U.S. policy from supporting the resolution of Taiwan’s future through peaceful talks to one suggesting the United States stands against Taiwanese aspirations regardless of the circumstances at play.

Opinion polls in Taiwan show most people support maintaining the status quo, neither seeking to join with China nor establishing a new state.

In 2022, the State Department changed its website on Taiwan, removing wording both on not supporting Taiwan independence and on acknowledging Beijing’s position that Taiwan is part of China, which angered the Chinese. It later restored the language on not supporting independence for the island.

The two leaders are expected to speak again before Biden’s term in office ends in January, talks that may come by phone or on the sidelines of next month’s G20 summit in Brazil or APEC summit in Peru. APEC is one of few international forums where both Taiwan and China take part.

The Democratic president will hand over the tense Taiwan issue to his successor, Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris or Republican former President Donald Trump, following the Nov. 5 election.
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